Chapter 344: Grandteacher Is On His Way (1)
A storm was brewing in Great Xia.
Su Yu was merely a tiny drop of water within the ocean that was Great Xia. Any random wave was enough to obliterate him. He was not bothered with what was happening. His main focus should still be his cultivation.
As for all those plots and schemes, all those were only for the sake of getting stronger. If one couldn't grow strong, it didn't matter how good one was at scheming. It would still take only a single slap to end one's life.
HIs current priority was the foundation cultural art. Although he had yet to receive the rest of the five elemental blood essence from Xia Huyou, he had still received 60 drops so far. That much should be enough for him for now.
Inside the fragment room.
Su Yu had decided to restore his attitude to how it was when he first joined the academy. He had to work even harder on his cultivation. As far as he was concerned, his growth was still not fast enough. He found it unreasonable that he still couldn't defeat the top 30 students.
As for the fact that he had only entered the academy for two months...well, that did not matter. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he had offended even a peak Mountainsea cultivator.
...
Inside his sea of willpower, the power of a drop of blood essence was being absorbed. 36 temporary soul apertures were opened. These apertures joined up into a complete system that started taking in the ambient willpower within the room like they were breathing.
"The willpower here is somewhat impure..."
That was Su Yu's first impression. The ambient willpower in this room was chaotic and impure. Because of that, absorption was hard. Even with 36 apertures opened, the absorption speed was still slow.
"But it's actually quite decent."
Su Yu was not too picky. Instead of strengthening his willpower, he utilized the absorbed willpower to temper his apertures. From the first aperture, he started the long process of aperture opening. He would be able to actively cultivate his willpower after opening 36 apertures. The absorption speed was still very slow right now.
Soul apertures were much harder to open than physical acupoints. Prior to this, Su Yu had already tried several times but he had not been able to open any. This time, he was trying to use the power of blood essence to absorb the willpower he required.
Gradually, the first aperture started showing signs of opening. The aperture initially looked quite dim as it had only been opened temporarily with blood essence, but it was slowly turning bright.
Finally, the power of the first drop of blood essence was fully exhausted. Su Yu wasted no time and consumed the second drop. By the time the power of the second drop was exhausted, the aperture was already incomparably bright.
Next, it trembled and created a rumbling sound in Su Yu's mind. As of that moment, he felt as though his soul had been separated from his physical body. It was as though he had arrived at a vast world. His soul, or to be precise, his willpower, was roaming this world. He had opened his very first soul aperture!
Su Yu was looking at his own body from a third party perspective, as though he was having an out-of-body experience. Out-of-body experience! He held that thought. Yes. Opening an aperture was basically the same as opening an acupoint of his soul. In a way, willpower was the same as soul.
"Willpower materialization...willpower acupoint opening..."
In his daze, Su Yu seemed to have reached a certain understanding. Why were humans only able to open apertures after willpower materialization? Because only then would a human cultivator be able to truly sense the existence of their willpower. Only then would they be able to locate their apertures. Was that why?
Without any prior experience, one would not know the location of those apertures. And one wasn't even able to sense those apertures.
"Thus, even if I can come out with a proper cultural art, without prior experience, this will still be something extremely difficult to cultivate. One will need to spend a lot of time and energy on it..."
With a thought from Su Yu, his soul returned to his body. And when he opened his eyes again, the world around him had changed completely. Before this, he was unable to see willpower. For him, willpower was similar to air. He knew that it existed, but he couldn't see it.
But now, he was able to see something else around him. Something misty could be seen surrounding him. That was willpower.
That was something he previously could only sense with his willpower. Now, he could see the mist with his eyes as well. Normally, a cultivator would only gain this ability at the Skysoar Realm.
It was no wonder that only those at the Skysoar Realm could properly see a student's willpower percentage. Because they could see willpower with their naked eye.
Su Yu was overjoyed. The clumps of mist were currently approaching him. For some reason, these clumps of mist gave him a dirty and impure impression.
"Is there no clean or pure willpower around?"
Suddenly, Su Yu thought of a place. Bai Feng's laboratory! That place was filled with purified willpower. Would the willpower in there feel different? At that thought, Su Yu stood up. He had decided to take a look. He wanted to see the difference between purified willpower and regular willpower.
...
Third underground floor.
Bai Feng had returned to his research on the assembly of characters of different races. He was completely focused on his research and was ignoring everything else. No outsider was able to enter this laboratory.
Those capable of entering would either be someone from his own side or an incomparably powerful enemy that could kill him with one slap. Thus, he didn't even need to be on alert against outsiders while doing his research. If an enemy could really go this deep into their research center, that enemy would be able to slap him to death no matter how alert he was.
While busy with his research, he sensed someone entering. He assumed that it was Su Yu and couldn't be bothered to double check. He continued focusing on his research.
What was Su Yu doing? He was salivating. Milky white. Yes. In his eyes, the laboratory was filled with a milky white mist that seemed really tasty. The willpower here was extremely pure.
The willpower here was basically as pure as his source qi. If the willpower in the fragment room was akin to his source qi before purification, then the willpower here was akin to his source qi after purification. It was incomparably pure. His sole opened aperture started slowly absorbing the milky white mist in the air.
Su Yu trembled. He was trembling from bliss. He felt so comfortable he nearly moaned. Holy shit. The difference was too big. When he was absorbing willpower earlier, he even felt disgusted. But here, the experience was incredible.
Since he only had one opened aperture, he wasn't able to absorb much. He looked at his teacher guiltily. His teacher wouldn't notice anything, right? He was only trying out the flavor of pure willpower! He was only doing this to learn the difference between chaotic willpower and purified willpower. And he could conclude that the difference was indeed very big.
...
Bai Feng was not paying any attention to the willpower in the air. As far as he was concerned, Su Yu couldn't even actively absorb willpower yet, so why should he bother?
But he did notice that Su Yu was remaining in the area. He assumed that Su Yu was here to check out his research, so he felt gratified. Finally, the kid had learned to worry about his teacher's research.
After a while, when Bai Feng was almost done with his research for the day, he turned around to look at Su Yu. And he was faced with a Su Yu who was smiling while staring blankly ahead.
"What are you doing?"
Bai Feng's question roused Su Yu from his daze.
Su Yu exhaled in relief. Fortunately, he had only been digesting the tiny bit of pure willpower he had absorbed and had not been absorbing more. If his teacher caught him absorbing the pure willpower here, he would get in trouble.
He did not dare to tell his teacher the truth. Instead, he flashed a silly smile and said, "My willpower feels very comfortable staying here. Can I cultivate faster by staying here?"
"Nonsense." Bai Feng said, "Of course you feel good here. And your cultivation will definitely be slightly faster here. But you are not allowed to cultivate here. If you study willpower texts here, the impure willpower will spread from your cultivation and taint the pure willpower in this room. This will make it harder for us to preserve Divine Characters in this room."
"Alright." Su Yu nodded and curiously asked, "Teacher, where can I find some pure willpower?"
Bai Feng looked at Su Yu with an odd gaze and said, "It's not like you can actively absorb willpower right now so why ask? It's the same wherever you cultivate since you can't absorb anything. Cultivating through a clash of willpower is enough for you."
"Teacher, I'm only asking because I'm curious. Don't keep telling me that I don't need to know."
That was true. Bai Feng nodded in agreement. As a teacher, it was his job to dispel the doubts of his student.
"Pure willpower can't be found anywhere. It can only be created through a purification process. Of course, different environments will still have willpower of different purity. For example, the willpower in our fragment room is slightly purer than the willpower in the books depository. As for the willpower in the books depository, it is better than the willpower in the shitty library.
"If we assign a percentage to the purity level, then our fragment room has a purity of 50 percent, the books depository has a purity of 40 percent, and the library has a purity of 30 percent. Meanwhile, this lab would have a purity of 100 percent. Naturally, the academy has a Willpower Grotto with a purity of 80 percent. That is actually quite a good place."
"Willpower Grotto?"
"Yeah." Bai Feng explained, "That can be considered a high-end grotto. It was left behind by the first principal. The first principal was also from the multiple character faction. And the Willpower Grotto is quite a special grotto. Instead of being formed by a single character, it was formed by multiple characters.
"One could even say that the Willpower Grotto is the first principal's sea of willpower. Due to the high number of characters in it, this grotto is very difficult to open. Each opening is also extremely expensive."
Su Yu nodded and asked expectantly, "So can we enter?"
"Sure." Bai Feng replied, "As long as you have the money, you can enter as you wish. For each entry...hmm...you'll need around 70,000 or 80,000 merit points. Yeap. It's not that expensive. Each time this grotto is opened, around 50 people can enter. Thus, you can charge all these people for around 1,000 merit points each and you will have enough to activate the grotto once. Yeap. You can give it a try."
Su Yu was speechless. Teacher, stop messing around.
Bai Feng then sneered, "Enter? Dream on. Apart from being expensive to activate, this grotto also requires several Mountainsea cultivators to keep activated. Do you think you can activate it so easily? Money alone won't be enough. Stop dreaming."
Su Yu turned gloomy. Why was his teacher so mean? He was just asking.
"Teacher, is purifying willpower hard?"
Bai Feng glanced at Su Yu and said, "Don't bite off more than you can chew. Purifying willpower isn't hard. You only need money. For example, you only need to destroy hundreds of willpower texts, extract the willpower within, and remove the impurities from the willpower repeatedly. After this process, you will obtain a tiny bit of pure willpower."
Su Yu was stunned. That sounded so luxurious. Was that also the origin of the pure willpower in this room? This was too expensive!
"Teacher, have you opened the apertures of the Myriad Text Sutra?"
Bai Feng was starting to have the urge to throw a bunch of insults at his student. The kid wasn't even at the Skysoar Realm yet. What was the point of asking all these questions? What was the kid trying to do?
Nevertheless, Bai Feng still patiently explained, "The Myriad Text Sutra requires 72 apertures. Apertures are hard to open. Generally, we only need 36 apertures at the Skysoar Realm to form a full cycle. At the Cloudbreach Realm, we can open the remaining 36 apertures and form a larger cycle."
"So 36 apertures are enough?" Su Yu asked in astonishment, "How about the stages of cultural researchers in the Skysoar Realm? Are the stages determined by the opened apertures as well?"
"More or less. The grade of one's willpower will be measured as well." Bai Feng explained, "For example, you have four opened apertures. That will give you a low-grade second-tier willpower. If you also have a second-tier Divine Character, that will make you a standard first-stage Skysoar Realm cultural researcher."
Su Yu blinked. Just that?
"Do I count as a first-stage Skysoar Realm cultivator if I fulfill all that without achieving willpower materialization?"
"Bullshit!" Bai Feng scolded, "Without materialization, how can you be considered a cultural researcher? Without materialization, your willpower won't be able to reach the second tier. Your apertures also can't be opened. Without all that, how can you be considered a proper cultural researcher?"